KCRW Pie Contest

I love pie. Especially the filling. I do love crust but only when it’s really good. Making pie crust on the other hand is a whole other story. It’s the Holy Grail for me.

I took the Professional Baking course at the New School of Cooking in Culver City just for the pie crust part. Of course I learned a lot more than that and tackled everything from croissants to cake but the pie crust week was what I was looking forward to. I actually made a great crust during school and by myself afterwards. Goal accomplished!

So there’s the 6th Annual Good Food Pie Contest sponsored by KCRW and hosted by Good Food host Evan Kleinman. Another challenge! So I entered. Two pies. Fruit and vegan.

I make a decent sour cherry slab pie. I made it for Paula’s birthday a few years ago and I really loved it. It’s like a giant pop tart. With that pie I actually had picked the cherries myself. There’s a farm out in Leona Valley that grows sours and they have u-pick. The picking season for sours is very short. Sometimes just a day. Leona Valley has many sweet cherry farms with u-pick but the one farm with sours is where I go first. Alas, it is no longer in business…. Anyhow, so no more u-pick sours – what to do? I scoured the interweb and found Northwest Wild Foods in Washington and ordered up some sours. They came very quickly and were fantastic! Big and beautiful sour cherries.

So for the vegan pie that was another question. What do to? I am a vegetarian but not a vegan and have never made a vegan pie. For some reason I had African Peanut Soup in my head. I wanted to try to make a sweet pie with that concept but not just a peanut butter pie. I added sweet potatoes and cayenne and had my pie.

Day of contest was hot. Not just warm but HOT. It’s been hot in So Cal for a couple of years so I was not surprised. So I got up at the crack of dawn and started on the pies. I had to bake 2 each before 10:30am so I could bring my pies over by 11:30am. Eep!

The African Sweet Potato Peanut Pie was easy – mix it all in the Cuisinart and bake. The Sour Cherry Slab pie was another thing. Only because of the heat. I had a cut out/applique idea to say “Can She Bake A Cherry Pie”. So on my first try to put the top crust on I miscalculated how warm the dough was and the whole thing fell apart in my hands….. Blah. Thankfully I had made 4 batches of dough and I still had dough in the fridge. Next try was ok and it would just have to do.

The contest was at UCLA. Parking was easy but finding the drop off was a little confusing. Bad signage. That said I we dropped off the judges pie and when scouting for a good spot in the booths set up for the public to come try our pies. Like I said, it was hot and most of the shaded spots were taken but I did manage to snag a shady spot!

There were hundreds of people lined up (in the hot sun no less) waiting to taste the pies. Hundreds! Once they were let in it got a little crazy. People first started “shopping” for the pies they wanted to taste. They were only alloted 2 tastes (which I think was bad – they should bet a lot more than that). My cherry pie was gone first and I got great feedback from people. A few people actually came back to me and told me how much they loved it. The vegan pie was slower to go but it was also well received. Thankfully!

So the finale and results were announced. There were 370++ pies entered! Wow. At the end of it all I did not win in any category but I felt proud to have entered and the great feedback from the public was my payback.

SOUR CHERRY SLAB PIE

First make sure everything is cold. Mix the water, vinegar and sugar into a syrup and chill.

Then, pulse the flour, salt and butter in a food processor until it is the size of medium peas. Dump this fatty flour out on a work surface, and gather it into a pile.

Pour in half of the sugar syrup, and start mixing it all together gently; this is messy work. Squeeze the dough together and lightly rub the butter peas into the flour. Use the palm of your hand and press against the table gently and smear/rub the dough together.

Sprinkle on more of the syrup, keep squeezing and rubbing. Try to work quickly so that the butter does not melt. This is the key to flakiness.

When the dough comes together in a shaggy ball, I wrap the whole thing in plastic and let it chill in the fridge for an hour. This relaxes the gluten and brings the dough together.

After that hour, portion the dough into 14 oz. balls and roll them out, usually very thick, depending on the pie, roughly 1/4 of an inch.

Lay the dough into your desired pie plate and chill it for half an hour while you mix your filling.

Bake in a convection oven, starting at 375 for the first 15 minutes and then lowering the temp to 325 to finish.